Joseph Eichler (1900-1974), was an American real estate developer well known for his suburban developments in what has come to be known as the California Modern, or mid-century modern style. His most extensive development was in the San Mateo Highlands. It was built over an 11-year period from 1955 to 1965. To promote this new development, Eichler built the X-100. It was a research house designed in 1955 by architects A. Quincy Jones and Frederick E. Emmons and opened in October 1956.

It was recently restored to both preserve and enhance the integrity of the original design. Work was being complete right up to the 2017 Eichler Home tour we attended this past May (the first time the house was open to the public since 2009.)

The plan is roughly a square that has been split and slid along the north-south axis. Sliding the plan created the openings for the entries, and—in conjunction with all the glass—dissolves the distinction between interior and exterior space. The materials are steel (structural and decking), and concrete (block and slab). The interior is finished in panelling, laminate and ceramic and vinyl tile. Lighting is provided principally with skylights, which are spotlit from above so they can be a source of light both night and day. This is supplemented with wall and ceiling mounted spot lights, and the occasional pendant or ceiling fixture. The central bathrooms are tiled on the floors, walls, and counters, and feature a shared sunken shower. The kitchen is open and modern, with the only nod to tradition being the oven cabinet that separates the kitchen from the living room.

A plan of the X100 on display within the house during the 2017 Eichler Tour

For the curious, below is a Universal International newsreel from October 24, 1956 that introduced the house. The announcer points out that "it's not for sale, if you could afford it. It's a research house testing a whole new design concept." He goes on to mention the indoor and outdoor gardens, the skylights, the steel columns and roof beams, and the sliding table with a built in cooktop.

A article with many period photographs is available here. Original brochures for the house are available here.

This Eichler was built in 1956, has three bedrooms, two baths, and is 1044 square feet.

The X-100 is one of twelve homes that Inertia was able to visit in May on the Eichler Home Tour 2017. Earlier, we wrote about other houses on the tour, as well as posted a gallery of Eichlers that weren't included in the tour.

Of all the Eichlers we visited, this one felt the most livable and down to earth. The spaces felt comfortable, bright, and well sized. Some were humbly furnished with IKEA, an inexpensive but nonetheless modern choice that many of us can relate to.

While this house does look like an effortless tidying of an original Eichler, the renovations were extensive. The house started with a walled off kitchen separating the living and dining rooms, and had over the years been fitted with arches, crown mouldings and a large drop-in tub in the ensuite. This down-to-the-stud renovation saw the dining room moved to the centre of the plan, the kitchen to the front, and a sitting area added on adjacent to the kitchen (so the TV didn't have to go above the fireplace). The tub was removed and replaced with a large walk-in shower that has a floor-to-ceiling view of the re-landscaped back yard.

Clerestory windows bring south light right into the main living space, and skylights in the bedroom wing add sparkle to what would otherwise be dark internal spaces. Unexpected splashes of colour contrast against the otherwise white interior. Even the side yard is activated as a comfortable and usable space.

This Eichler was built in 1957, has four bedrooms, two baths, and is 2000 square feet.

1704 Yorkton is one of twelve homes that Inertia was able to visit in May on the Eichler Home Tour 2017. Earlier, we wrote about other houses on the tour, as well as posted a gallery of Eichlers that weren't included in the tour.

While the San Mateo Highlands are indeed on a hill, most of the properties do not have a view. Their yards tend to be enclosed and feel very private. It's remarkable how much a yard can feel like an outdoor room when the eave of the house isn't much higher that the top of the neighbour's fence.

The house at 2227 Cobble Hill, however, has an amazing view of the California countryside. As well, the yard is a little larger than most, given the rear living space an expansiveness uncommon in the community. It's southern exposure brings light deep into the plan. Skylights in eaves further bring light in. The large planes of glass, both the front and rear of the house, blur the difference between interior and exterior.

The living room addition on the rear of the house has a high ceiling that clears and preserves the original roofline. The clearing out the crown mouldings and shag carpet, the rest of the renovations have restored the essential intent of this midcentury home.

This Eichler has four bedrooms, two baths, and is 2158 square feet.

2227 Cobble Hill is one of twelve homes that Inertia was able to visit in May on the Eichler Home Tour 2017. Earlier, we wrote about other houses on the tour, as well as posted a gallery of Eichlers that weren't included in the tour.

While many of the houses we saw on this tour were immaculately showable, this house was only partway through it's renovation. While the unrenovated parts of the house were closed off (the bedrooms and bathrooms), the rest of the house looked fantastic.

This Eichler is considered a 'true atrium' model. Rather than having a skylit forecourt, this house surrounds it's interior courtyard that is almost entirely open to the sky. It also serves as the entry to the home as the front door opens directly into the atrium. Windows face the atrium from three sides (there are no windows in the garage wall) meaning that someone sitting in the front office can see clear through the courtyard and the kitchen into the back yard.

Recent renovations include taking down the wall between the kitchen and the entry to open up the space, and updating the kitchen with a large island and new cabinets.

We had a great conversation with the owner who seemed very happy to be showing off the work he's put into his home. He did tell us a secret: his own furniture was hidden in the bedrooms and the rooms he was showing were staged by the San Mateo location of Scandinavian Designs, an American retailer of contemporary furniture.

If you look closely at the pictures in the gallery above, you'll see a pair of frameless windows that makes the brick fireplace appear to be sitting within an unglazed opening in the side of the house. As well, you might catch Trent enjoying the disposable footwear we all had to wear. (They didn't want us tracking any Eichler awesomeness out onto the street.)

This Eichler was built in 1958, has four bedrooms, two baths, and is 1710 square feet.

2090 New Brunswick is one of twelve homes that Inertia was able to visit in May on the Eichler Home Tour 2017. Earlier, we wrote about another house on the tour, as well as posted a gallery of Eichlers that weren't included in the tour.

Owners of Eichler houses have to decide if they are going to renovate or restore the building, or some combination of the two. In the case of 1755 Lexington Avenue, the owners were able to find a mostly original home that required some work to return it to the original aesthetic. Happily, the cinderblock fireplace and much of the mahogany panelling and was intact. The flooring, roofing and landscaping, however, needed replacement. The end result is very much in the spirit of Eichler.

This Eichler was built in 1956, has four bedrooms, two baths, and is 1730 square feet.

1755 Lexington is one of twelve homes that Inertia was able to visit earlier this month on the Eichler Home Tour 2017. We posted a gallery of Eichlers that were not on the tour in an earlier blog post.

Joseph Eichler built iconic Mid-century Modern houses in California in the 1950s and 1960s. While he built over 11,000 houses over his career, the The Highlands of San Mateo, California is the largest contiguous development of Eichler homes. This past weekend, we had a chance to visit eleven of the approximately 700 Eichlers in the Highlands, as well as one in nearby Burlingame. We'll revisit most of them individually in this blog, but we wanted to begin with a gallery of houses that were not on the tour just so you can become familiar with the context of this unique late 1950s communities.

In our last post, we discussed the first three projects we visited on the recent The Modern Architecture + Design Society Home Tour. The latter portion of our tour took us to the north west of the city. We went to St. Andrew's Heights, a neighbourhood blessed with amazing views and large lot sizes.

Photo Credit: NewGrowth & Stephen Barnecut

The NewGrowth House was an interesting contemporary design with an industrial feel, exemplified by the massive concrete walls of the house and the weathered corten steel fins used to tier the landscaping. We loved that the main architectural feature, the board-cast concrete wall, runs through the whole house and acts as a compass within the plan. The concrete on the interior was contrasted by the warmth of the dark walnut window frames. With it's front facing kitchen and dining space, the project captured light and views in the spaces most commonly inhabited by the residents.

Photo Credit: Stephen Barnecut & Larissa Schuler

We intentionally visited MBAC's house last and we wanted to end with a bang! Marc Boutin has always been one to push boundaries and create unique spaces, and we were not disappointed. The exterior features a factory-like corrugated metal siding paired with cedar tongue and groove. From the front, the house appears to be the size of a low-lying bungalow. However, once we stepped inside, we discovered that the grade quickly dropped down to the backyard and allowed for a full walk-out basement. The L-shaped house created a courtyard between it's two wings. The two-level elevations facing the courtyard were clad with full curtain walls spanning from the basement floor to the roof. Aluminum grating at the roof overhang shielded the space from direct sun without significantly limiting the views or light available to the spaces within. We appreciated the industrial and commercial materials used in a residential project; they were tempered with wood cladding and many delicate millwork details that kept the interior feeling intimate.

Overall, we were pleasantly surprised by many new design types and ideas that are starting to emerge in Calgary. We get the sense that local housing design is becoming a lot more sophisticated and bold. Here's to the future of residential!

We're happy that as the residential design industry grows in Calgary, local practitioners have started to share their knowledge and experience with each other. The Modern Architecture + Design Society Home Tour was a great leap forward, where we got to experience first-hand some of the innovations our fellow designers have put to use.

Our first stop on the home tour was in Bridgeland (a community we are working in frequently) to visit a project on a narrow lot along 4th Avenue designed by KaBeN. Slim parcels have their own challenges, but KaBeN took on another by designing a sustainable house.

We were pleasantly surprised by the materiality of the house: the cork floors, plywood on the walls upstairs, oak on the ceilings, etc. The main floor was polished concrete, while the upper floor was cork—a great example of using materials to differentiate between public and private spaces. The narrow 22' lot meant that the interior would be quite tight, so partitions on the main were kept to a minimum and spaces, such as the kitchen, was delineated using bulkheads.

Photo Credit: HouseBrand

Our next stop was the reFAB design by HouseBrand, which was a project designed for aging-in-place. John Brown is addressing a growing market for individuals who do not want to move every time their life changes.

One of the features we loved most about the design was the built-in millwork that separates rooms instead of stud-walls. The house has core walls for mechanical systems, but otherwise has a modular room design that allows for alternative layouts as needs change without major renovation. We also liked the clever use of cost-effective Hardie-board cladding, which was tiered in gradients of grey to add more variety and tone to the exterior.

Photo Credit: Stephen Barnecut & RNDSQR

Next we visited RNDSQR in their show home in Marda Loop. They're experimenting with interior and exterior textures to add complexity to clean, streamlined designs. Exteriors feature natural-tinted cedar shakes on west-fasting facades while the interior showcases an patterned steel screen to act as a guard for the stairs and geometric tiles on walls and bathroom counters tops.

Some of us here at Inertia are fans of coffee. We are fairly indiscriminate about our modes of coffee making. Yes, we have a Keurig and a Nespresso machine. We also have a grinder and a French press. What we haven't had is a coffee shop that we can walk to.

Now, this was a deliberate decision. When we signed the lease on our Highfield office we were very busy. We contemplated renting an office with a more fashionable address. But Inertia has been through one downturn in it's history, and we've learned that the last thing you want when things get slow is high overhead. As well, our commitment to our staff is unwavering, and we didn't want to be faced with the prospect of eroding our team just to pay the rent.

Which brings me back to coffee. Early in 2014, we were watching an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (which we recommend for obvious reasons), and Jerry Seinfeld took Patton Oswalt to a Handsome Coffee, a shop in Los Angeles that was quite clearly in the middle of nowhere.

Handsome Coffee as featured in Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

We decided to check it out. Last year, when we were in Los Angeles for the Dwell Home Tour, we took a detour to the industrial wasteland south of Downtown Los Angeles. The coffee business was going strong (as was business at the taco truck outside that would deliver your tacos right to your seat in the coffee shop!). Bluebottle has since purchased the location (and the talent), and a restaurant has moved in across the street, but we still had to pass a number of crumbling brick warehouses and razor wired lots to get there from our parking spot.

We thought, if Angelenos can have a coffee shop in the middle of nowhere, why can't we! And yet we didn't ... until just a few months ago.

The latest Analog Coffee is in our 'hood!

Fratello Coffee Roasters has been in the coffee business coming on thirty years. Their roastery on 9th Street SE has served a growing number of Analog Coffee locations in Calgary as well as a much broader network of shops that serve their beans. And, a few months ago. they decided to open their training counter up as a full service coffee shop!

Darcy manning the counter at Analog in Highfield

We're thrilled to be able to walk to our local coffee shop. And it's not just any shop; it's arguably the best coffee in the city. We recommend to all of our clients (and everyone else) that you pay a visit when you're in the neighbourhood. And say 'Hi' to Darcy from us!

A few months ago, Inertia went on a housing tour of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. The area is in the middle of a housing boom, and we were able to see a wide range of product over the two day tour.

Balance

Microsuites are becoming popular in the area, but not where we expected to find them. Tien Sher's Balance project isn't in downtown Vancouver, but rather in Surrey. Many of the units were less than 400 square feet. Because it was hard for people to visualize how to use this tiny space, the smallest units were fitted out with murphy beds from Resource Furniture.

The elevation demonstrates that it is still possible to achieve something engaging while still using basic finishes.

Freemont

One of our favourite projects from the tour were Mosaic Homes' Freemont Indigo and Freemont Green in Port Coquitlam. These are mid-rise and townhouse developments respectively that are on the Pitt River near the Lougheed Highway. We were impressed by the layouts, landscaping, finishes and attention to detail. They also reminded us of comprehensive developments we've seen in Southern California, both in terms of design and presentation. Like such southern projects, Freemont shares a common private club house that features a lounge, fitness studio, meeting room, community garden, dogwash, gymnasium and a pool.

Exchange

Hayer's Exchange Townhouses in Willoughby are unexpectedly urban for being almost an hour out of Downtown Vancouver on the Trans-Canada Highway. The back-to-back layout presents the challenge of how to accommodate an attached garage, amenity space, enough bedrooms and bringing enough light into the units. The solution was to sling two storey units overtop of the garage, put a deck on the roof, limit the interior units to two bedrooms and locate the three bedroom units on the corners.

The Amazing Brentwood

We've joked about the absurdly named Amazing Brentwood project, but its the one project name that we remember without fail. Amazing is an urban development project on a massive scale. In the previously vast parking lot that surrounded a suburban mall, an increasing number of 50+ storey residential towers are being built. In combination with the nearby Skytrain station, Brentwood is quickly becoming a dense urban hub for North Burnaby.

At the time of our visit, the first tower was still just a hole in the ground. That said, at the time of this post, the first two towers are sold out and the third tower is 75% sold.

Ambleside

In West Vancouver, Grosvenor's Ambleside demonstrates what move-down living can look like when money isn't an object. This urban project is aimed at those who are simplifying their lives and who want a lock-and leave-alternative to their West Vancouver house but who don't want to leave their neighbourhood or their furniture.

This James Cheng designed building has units that range in size from about 1,000 SF to over 2,500 SF. Each unit also features private underground parking.

There wasn't much to see of the actual project yet, but their model and sales centre were spectacular.

And Many More

We toured eighteen projects in two days. Most of them were interesting, but there were certainly too many to fit into this post. After visitings a few new developents near UBC as well as the Shannon Wall Centre on Granville, we finished the second day up at the Residences at the Georgia Hotel. There we were treated to spectacular views of Downtown Vancouver and surroundings.

Clearly there is a lot of choice in the Vancouver housing market whether you want to live 50 storeys in the sky or in under 500 square feet. Issues of a housing bubble or foreign investment aside, we were able to bring back some great ideas that we continue to incorporate into our new designs.

At Inertia, our designs can sometimes be limited by the products that are locally available. This is particularly true with windows. Luckily, we've had the opportunity to work with Gaulhofer Canada on a number of projects. Gaulhofer's windows have significant performance and design advantages, including the ability to have significantly larger windows and sliding doors.

Last week, Inertia had a chance to tour the Gaulhofer Window factory in Übelbach near Graz, Austria. In the gallery above you can see images from the factory, as well as from some projects in Graz that are using Gaulhofer's windows and doors.

Lift and Slide unit with one small door to the left and a larger one to the right.

At one of these projects we saw a great use of their lift and slide doors (image above). On one side was a narrow door and on the other was a wider. This is perfect for weather you just want to slip out to barbecue with the small door, or if you want to invite the outdoors in with both doors.

Integral blinds and bug screens.

One of the most interesting discoveries we made was that Gaulhofer can integrate exterior shutters or blinds into their windows. These block out solar gain far more effectively than interior blinds, and also can be used to control privacy and/or security. They can be operated mechanically with rods or straps, or they can be operated with a remote control. They also have retractable bug screens, which are perfect for winter when you don't need them.

Inertia had the opportunity to go on the South Bay home tour at the recent Dwell on Design conference in Los Angeles. Only personal photography is permitted inside the private homes, so here are some shots that anyone could take from the street with their iPhone. Unlike last year's tour, we were impressed with the quality of design and finishing. To find out more about this tour and the selected houses, visit the Dwell on Design website.

A few weeks ago, our Lead Technologist, Tom Jenson (@tomjenson), had a chance to visit rainy Chicago for the Revit Technology Conference - North America. While Inertia gets to enjoy some of the new Revit tricks he’s learned, we all get to enjoy some of the photos he brought back.

Inertia had the opportunity to go to Los Angeles this past weekend for Dwell on Design 2014. Here are some snaps of the trip including the Hollyhock House, Emerson College, the Shore Hotel, Intelligentsia as well as some random shots taken on the East Side House Tour.